The Gift of Self Acceptance

Self-Acceptance as a form of self expression!

Self Acceptance is a necessary personal development practice that is underestimated. More often if you were to take a moment and reflect, you may recognise that you have an inner critical voice or a self-judging thinking pattern. These ways of thinking can have a big impact on your day-to-day life. And can end up leaving you feeling frustrated and cross with yourself. Finding ways to let go of critical self-judgement and accepting yourself for who you are in this moment is a path to self-liberation.

In my experience, while working with a range of clients, these particular patterns of thinking can have a negative impact on how you feel. They can impact your capacity to engage in your life freely and fully. By creating more self-accepting thinking patterns you can feel more empowered, and motivated. You can also feel more energised in your day-to-day life. So firstly let us consider self-judgement.

Self-Judgement:

Self-Judgement can create a negative cycle of thinking that can shut us down. It can close us off. It can leave us feeling stuck and frustrated. Self-criticism can put a weight on our shoulders. It can make going about our day hard. Imagine what it would be like to go through every day without constant self-judgement or self-criticism. How liberating would that be?

So what can we do to support ourselves? When we recognise that we do have a tendency to be regularly self-critical or self-judging, what do we do? The first step is to understand that you do have the capacity to address these thinking patterns. You can begin to rephrase the narrative you tell yourself. When you recognise the self-critical and self-judging thinking kicking in, you rephrase it. Secondly, we look at how we begin to address our negative thinking.

Addressing Negative Thinking:

Neuroscience research suggests that our brains are pre-programmed to lean towards negative thinking, so what we need to do is learn to create a new more positive stream of thinking to replace this negative thinking pattern.  So rather than get swept along with the negative thinking, you proactively recognise when the negative thinking pattern starts and bring in the new positive thinking pattern to override the pre-established negative thinking pattern. Thirdly, you ask yourself the following test questions.

So your test questions for yourself, when you are considering your inner thinking and inner self-judgement, are: do any of these thinking patterns nurture, support, empower or enable me? Do you hear yourself using “I should” ,“I’m no good at this” ,“people don’t like me” or “I’m never going to…” These are the types of statements that disempower, demotivate and quash our spirits.

Reflection and Self-checking:

So check the language you use when talking to yourself. Is it nurturing, supportive, empowering and enabling? Think for a moment and consider whether you could be more proactively accepting of yourself. Could you be more encouraging of yourself? What empowering and enabling self-talk could you offer yourself every day to counteract your old negative thinking pattern? Life is a learning journey, when we know better, we will do better. Allowing ourselves to step into life experiences with an open perspective creates opportunities and possibilities. This then opens us up to the art of possibilities and new life heights.

So in conclusion, stepping away from self-judgment and inner criticism, and proactively stepping into a more self-accepting inner narrative releases you from the weight of judgement and criticism. It gives you the space to develop a more curious perspective. It opens you up to a wealth of new possibilities.  By shifting from judging to accepting, from critical to curious and from problem-focused to openness to possibilities, things quickly begin to unfold. They unfold in a new and enlightening way. Allowing ourselves to step into a more self-accepting perspective can begin to create space for new possibilities and opportunities. Self-Acceptance is a foundational aspect of our personal growth and helps us thrive in our day-to-day life.  

Would you Like Support?

Take those first steps into self-acceptance. Need some support along your journey? Why not find out more about what I can offer you and how I can support you as your Personal Development Specialist and Life Coach?